6. HOME. Home is where the heart is. I’ve spent so much time putting my home together, designing it, then re-designing it…that I can’t help but feel HOME when I am HOME. When I first started off in my current apartment, I had NO FURNITURE, except for my mattresses, a couple of storage cabinets, some Ikea furniture, and a dresser. I didn’t even have a TV.
My aunt and uncle gave me their old sofa and some folding chairs to sit on…then my brother dropped off an old TV since he was upgrading to flat screen. Then over the course of the next few years, I started to add my own pieces of furniture, like the Exotic collection from Target. Very sleek, looks expensive, but it’s very affordable.
I bought my bed from Neiman Marcus’ furniture site, Horchow. I bought my kitchen table and chairs from Target.com (cost me a pretty penny for it…$800 for the table, $400 for the chairs). I even picked up the cutest desk from Target.com.
Decorating it…I invested in artwork. Lina Kasparaityte (Darius Kasparaitis’ sister) sold me a couple of her paintings before she left NYC to go back home. I even pick up some items to go in the house every single time I travel. It makes the apartment seem worldly.
There’s always something I’d like to upgrade or re-do, because as I accumulate more things, I need a new way to store them (like updating my office to turn it into a library, too).
One thing is for sure, I do love the way my home has come along. I’m always looking for a new way to update it so I don’t get bored or hate it. I also make sure to fill it up with good energy so that I can feel relaxed, safe and happy when I’m at home.
5. Paris, France. The first time I ever went to Paris, I felt like I belonged in the city. It was like I had lived there in a past lifetime and was re-visiting it after being away for so long.
I love everything Paris has to offer…from French food, to the beautiful sites, to the beautiful, very chic Parisians, to the art, to the culture…I could just go on and on.
{I so can’t wait to be back in Paris at the end of the month!}
4. Prague, Czech Republic. No doubt, I love Praha. It is one of the most beautiful places in the world. This is my home away from home. I could go on forever about how much I love Prague…but you probably know that already.
3. Santorini, Greece. One of the most beautiful places in the world is Santorini, Greece. This island is overrun by dogs. I’m not kidding…there are dogs everywhere. One of the best memories of being in Santorini was how this dog came up to me in Santorini, and licked my hand while I was looking at one of the churches. I turned around and realized he could smell my dinner in my bag (leftover sausages). That dog became our tour guide and showed us around all of the places in Oia, Santorini. After our tour, I rewarded him with some of the sausages I had in my bag.
Afterwards, he would take me to a certain point in Oia, where another dog picked us up, walked us to the next point, then another dog picked us up and took us back to the hotel. The next morning, while tourists were playing with the dog that dropped us off at the hotel, he was actually waiting for us…and then it took us to our next stop, until they reached the end of their territorial ground…and then the next dog picked us up.
The german shepherd, I called him La Polizia…because we caught him going into the police station with two other dogs, maintained the entire region as the police dog…he was the Alpha-Dog.
Sounds insane, right? My friend said she would not have believed this story if it hadn’t happened to both of us.
Believe it or not, they were acting as my guard/guide dogs. One evening, while we were stopped outside of a store, this guy my friend had met earlier that evening (during dinner) came down the road. The dog that was with me started growling. I took a step back. He then went running down the road toward the guy, sniffing and growling at him. As the guy got closer to me, the dog ran back over to me and started putting himself between me and the guy, pushing me back towards the wall. Four other dogs appeared out of nowhere and started growling and barking at the guy.
All I got out of it was that the dogs were all saying he was bad news. When my friend came out of the store to say hello to the guy, the dogs kept on growling at him. I told my friend that maybe we should go. So she said goodbye and went with me down the road. I told her that I think that guy is bad news. I told her what the dogs had done when he came down the road. That, if anything, was a huge sign the guy was bad news.
If anything, Santorini is the island of the dogs…and they are all so cool. I didn’t know until I saw the first dog that gave us a tour helping another man that was ill that the dogs only help people that are ill. I have a feeling they smelled the cancer on me and that was why I got the royal treatment by all of these dogs. They don’t care for tourists. They keep out of their way. But if the person is ill…they take care of them. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.
Besides the amazing sunsets and the beautiful shops…the dogs made this island one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to in my life.
2. Rutherford, NJ. I really love Rutherford. It’s one of those nice, very quaint towns just 20 minutes from Midtown, Manhattan. With cinemas that are $5 on the weekends (first showing) to 5 star restaurants up and down the main strip to a library that has seasonal book sales to the annual Labor Day Street Fair (filled with antiques, etc.), Rutherford is just one of those beautiful towns in the suburbs of New York City that make you say, “I LOVE THIS TOWN!”
1. New York C ity. You could live in NYC your entire life and still not be able to do everything that this town offers. There’s always something new that pops up left and right. How to spend your time? If anything, I’ve had a great time in this city over the last 7 years.
